May 2, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



417 



4. Those, who as clergymen, physicians or legal 

 advisers, have to attend the sick-beds of sufferers 

 from infectious disorders, may, on occasion, avail 

 themselves of the protection afforded by Dr. Sten- 

 house's instrument during their intercourse with 

 the sick. 



5. The longing for a short and decisive war has 

 led to the invention of "a suffocating bomb- 

 shell," which on bursting, spreads far and wide 

 an irrespirable or poisonous vapor; one of the 

 liquids proposed for the shell is the strongest am- 

 monia, and against this it is believed that the 

 charcoal respirator may defend our soldiers. As 

 likely to serve this end, it is at present before the 

 Board of Ordnance. 



Dr. Wilson stated, in conclusion, that Dr. Sten- 

 house had no interest but a scientific one in the 

 success of the respirators. He had declined to 

 patent them, and desired only to apply his re- 

 markable discoveries to the abatement of disease 

 and death. Charcoal had long been used in filters 

 to render poisonous water wholesome; it was now 

 to be employed to filter poisonous air. 



Clarence J. West 

 Chemical Warfare Service 



DUTY FREE SUPPLIES 



The interest in duty-free material has 

 changed to some extent since 1914 because of 

 the impossibility since that time of import- 

 ing materials from the Central Powers, the 

 former source of supply. During the war 

 some American firms have turned elsewhere, 

 because our European Allies were not in a 

 position to meet the demand. 



When the duty-free law was passed, pro- 

 vision was made for the importation without 

 tariff of materials for educational institutions 

 and those engaged in scientific research. The 

 purpose of this law, of course, was to give 

 these institutions the advantage of anything 

 that was made in foreign countries and thus 

 American scientists and the country as a 

 whole were enabled to receive the benefit of 

 foreign endeavor as far as possible. This was 

 a means of promoting knowledge and in the 

 earl.v days of scientific production was cer- 

 tainly of great benefit to this country, but it 

 also had ill effects as by-products. Scientific 

 materials were used in large quantities and 



though there was demand enough, it was diffi- 

 cult for a business to succeed in this country 

 where labor is paid at a higher schedule than 

 abroad. Consequently, many lines of supplies 

 which were tised in considerable quantities 

 were almost exclusively imported from foreign 

 countries. Of course, it is true that these 

 supplies, from a financial standpoint, were of 

 very little importance as far as the coimtry 

 at large is concerned, because the values con- 

 cerned amoumt to only a few million dollars 

 annually. 



But it must be recognized that we learn to 

 make things by actual experience, and if one 

 produces scientific apparatus and produces it 

 in an efficient and satisfactory manner, he is 

 able consequently to produce a related thing 

 for which there might be a critical need. For 

 instance : when the war broke out and the im- 

 portations from the Central Powers ceased, 

 this country found itself almost entirely with- 

 out optical glass. The optical glass used in 

 scientific institutions had been imported and 

 everything went along quite normally in peace 

 times but with the outbreak of the war 

 optical glass became a vital necessity, for one 

 might say there is no instrument of defense 

 which is not connected in some way with 

 optical glass, ranging all the way from tele- 

 scopes and field-glasses to eyeglasses. The 

 country that can not produce such things 

 satisfactorily and cheaply in an emergency is 

 certainly greatly handicapped in providing 

 defense. We all know of the consternation 

 caused in this coimtry in April, 1917, as the 

 seriousness of the situation dawned upon the 

 government and the public, when it was dis- 

 covered tliat no optical glass, broadly speak- 

 ing, was available for war work, the supply of 

 foreig^i glass having been exhausted. Perhaps 

 in a minor way this same state of afi'airs oc- 

 curred in almost every other industry of sci- 

 entific nature in this country. One need only 

 consider the difficulty in securing such in- 

 struments as polariscopes and microscopes to 

 realize the scarcity that is bound to e.xist 

 where any one country is dependent upon an- 

 other for absolutely necessary supplies. 



Therefore it is certainly true that the na- 



